Tips: Quality Meitzav Preparation

By

Ora Frietzis & Judy Mutzari

“It doesn’t get better by chance,

it gets better by change.”

Effective teaching all year long fosters the best results.

Student success should never depend on “teaching for the test” or having a 2 week crash course beforehand.

Be prepared, not scared.

“BEE” AWARE, “BEE” PREPARED

AND YOU’LL “BEE” HAPPY

The “Magic Four” • Organization:

– Set test, quiz and mock-Meitzav dates from the beginning of the year and keep the dates!

• Awareness: – Map your tests by skills/question types and use the results to

accommodate your teaching.

• Consistency: – It takes time and effort – don’t give up!

• Motivation – Engage and challenge your students with interesting ideas in order to

develop their critical thinking skills.

You can’t change your destination overnight,

but you can change your direction overnight.”

Jim Rohn

Must Do’s: Dynamic Mapping

for Beginning of the Year Test

• Prepare a dynamic mapping of the beginning of the year test:

• Divide the test into skills (Listening; Reading, Writing) and make a sum column for each skill

• Within the skills note the type of question: is it a Multiple Choice? Completion? Open Question?

• Check to see if there is a tendency in the class to have difficulties with a certain type of question: if there is – work on that question type orally and in writing in every lesson!

• Analyze your pupils’ strengths and weaknesses according to the test results.

• Accommodate your teaching in your lessons to fulfill those needs.

• Build Work Plans for Partani based on the results.

• Meitzav –File: Keep all your information in one place for easy access and comparison.

Reading Comprehension

Task 3 Story Sum Task 4 Sum Task 5 Sum

MC MC MC C MC MC MC OQ OQ MC OQ MC C C MC MC C

OQ MC

3 3 2 3 2 3 16 3 3 2 3 3 3 17 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 22

Example of Dynamic Question Type Mapping

Which Skill

Task number

Question type

Points allotted

MC – Multiple Choice C – Complete the sentence OQ – Open Question

Sum for each task

Must Do’s: Dynamic Mapping for Short Quizzes

– Give quizzes on short reading comprehension paragraphs: Give results without marks!

– Mark the quiz according to the benchmarks (main idea; sequencing; locating information, etc.

Text type: Informative Text

Names Understand the main ideas

Sequence of events

Extract inf. from visual data

Locate relevant inform.

Integration Inference

Zelda

_ _ _

Dina (OK) (Failed) (OK) (OK) (OK) (Failed)

Sima OK Failed

0K Failed Failed Failed

Make your students your partners!

Each text gives us some kind of information.

What information can this text give us?

Elicit from - or call to the student’s attention to

the particularities

characteristics

and difficulties each text type provides

Vocabulary How to Effectively Acquire New Vocabulary

A student needs to encounter a new word 10 to 16 times to

learn it effectively.

To effectively acquire new vocabulary students must go through four essential stages:

1. Notice a word with help 2. Recognize the word at first with help

3. Recognize the word their own 4. Students both recognize and produce the word.

Remember to cater to different learning styles or

multiple intelligences.

Classroom Language:

Vocabulary chunks which have consistently appeared in the Meitzav tests

reuse, recycle, find a word a friend, what else can you say, talk to the class about, talk with a friend, wear a hat, start to cook, finished school, worked too fast, *heard something funny, *was very tired, *have\has a surprise for, make food, *make noise, grow tomatoes, wrote about, read about, speak about, *study for tests, study together, *have a good time, *have a lot of fun, *had a great day, feed animals, came to visit, something *happened, see you tomorrow, get wet, play in the pool…

“Without Vocabulary Nothing Can be Conveyed”, Wilkins

Meitzav April 2013

Verbs Questions

wake up What did they give..?

hear a noise Why was … sad?

bring things What do you like you…?

copy one word What does ….find ?

speak slowly What is the … about?

I don’t have (want, know) Why is … sad on the first day in her new school?

She / He doesn’t like, want, speak, have)

How do the kids help her?

Chunks Reenter, reuse recycle, reduce failure

Chunks Learn Effectively

read a book read a story went to school went to + a place

write a letter, *copy one word

write a sentence came to the zoo came to +a place

invite a friend invite +people *asked a question answered in Hebrew/English

play games play on the computer

wanted to help wanted to +a verb

wear a hat wear sandals was sad was +an adjective

eat (for) breakfast

*eat (for) lunch gave a present gave+ a noun

visit family visit friends saw animals saw + a noun

*bring clothes bring a present had a great day, *had a new friend, have fun, *has many surprises

HF expressions with have/has/had

will be late will be at school

Make an activating Word – Wall with the chunks.

Make cards: Begin your lesson with fishing a word chunk from a pile of cards and putting it in a sentence.

Generate possibilities: What else can we wear… What else can we read… What else can we play

Suggestions for working with Word -

Chunks

High Frequency Words

• Dolch Word List (Click on link for list)

• From 50-75% of all words used in school books, library books, newspapers, and magazines are in the Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary of 220 words).

• Most cannot be learned through the use of pictures. Many of these words cannot be sounded out because they do not follow decoding rules and, therefore, must be learned as sight words.

• Raps and repetition are great for learning sight words. Try out this site: Havefunteaching

(Click on link for list)

Table of Specifications

1. Map out your textbook according to the Table of specifications. (Where do I have riddles/ an invitation/ stories. Informative articles…etc)

2. Practice each type of text.

3. Discuss the particularities ,demands and characteristics of each text type.

Table Grade 5

Difficulties of Listening Texts

• With speech - the words disappear…evaporate – nothing is left

• Students get overwhelmed: what are they talking about???

• Students forget the text

• Texts are too long - too many words to hear

• Students don’t understand the accent of the speaker

• The speaker reads too quickly

• In dialogues – students have difficulty understanding who says what

All Year Round…

• Make sure you devote class time to speaking and listening activities (student to student!)

• Spoken and written texts must be prepared with:

• Pre- tasks

• While Listening Tasks

• Post tasks

Pre-Tasks for Texts (Listening or Reading) with pictures

Listening/reading texts with pictures:

Look at the pictures.

– Students say to themselves in English as many words as they can that they see in the picture (prepare a word bank; map out where everything is on the page – it saves time later)

– Write sentences about the pictures

– Predict what the text will be about according to the pictures: topic, place, time, characters, text type

Pre-tasks for Texts with written questions

Read the questions before listening/reading • What kind of information is being asked?

– A chart to fill in? – A flow chart? – An open question? (Students do not need to write full sentences!) – A list? – A MC question?

• If so – read the options first – Matching? – True/ False Questions?

• Find the words you know first • Decide on the key words of the question: make sure (try to!) understand the

question: what information do I need? • Predict what the text will be about from the questions:

– what kind of a text will it be – a conversation? A story? A telephone conversation?

Teachers should model the think aloud process for finding answers

While listening tasks

Put text in context: • Listen to background noises:

– where is the text being spoken: at school?

– Who is speaking – children? a teacher in a classroom?

– Are these messages left on an answering system? A telephone conversation? Who says what?

• Listen to tone of voice: – identify the tone of voice of the speaker. Play “Change your Voice –Tone

games in the classroom”

• Listen for connectors of sequence (text organization) – first, second, third, finally, at the the end

• Comparisons: – therefore, as a result of, like, in contrast to, instead of

While reading tasks

Put text in context: • Bring the text into the students’ world:

– Is this situation familiar to you?

– Can you give me another example of…

• What’s the main idea?

• Pay attention to connectors of sequence (text organization) – first, second, third, finally, at the the end

• Pay attention to words for comparisons: – therefore, as a result of, like, in contrast to, instead of

“Bee” Aware – Prepare!

• Practice “wh” questions: • Make sure students can match types of answer to question:

Where: place; When – time/date, Who – name/person; What – noun; Why – because…

• Practice yes/no questions by “yes/no” statements • Practice finding reference words that support understanding e.g.

it, this, that these, those, his, hers, ours, their; Pay attention if it is singular or plural. Go back to the text and ask: “What does ‘x’ refer to?

Teachers should model the think aloud process for finding answers. • Notice special punctuation marks and text “glossing” - i.e. what

the symbol * next to a word means – students have the translation at the bottom of the text

READ THE QUESTIONS • What kind of information is being asked?

– A chart to fill in? A flow chart? An open question? (Students do not need to write full sentences!) A list? A MC question? (If so – read the options first) Matching?

– True/ False Questions?

• Find the words you know first • Decide on the key words of the question: make sure (try to!)

understand the question: what information do I need? • Return to the text: make sure to read the entire paragraph before

responding! • Inferring and reading between the lines:

– Does this question require reading between the lines? – Synonyms and Antonyms: Does the same meaning appear using different

words? Does the opposite of the key word appear?

Teachers should model the think aloud process for finding answers

Pre - tasks for written texts

Working in the classroom with listening texts

• 1st listening: – Don’t write/mark – focus on the key words. Raise your hand when you

hear an answer or a key word.

– Make sure to listen to the end before you answer:

– Pay attention that the key word can come with negation: e.g., “I don’t want pizza”

• 2nd listening: – Answer the questions…if you “missed” – go ahead –listen for next

question – what’s gone is gone…

• 3rd listening: – Check answers with the students.

*Remember – in the Meitzav there are only 2 repetitions

Working in the classroom with listening texts – For a weak classroom or weaker students

– Break listening texts up into smaller parts; get used to listening to the text sequentially

– Start with very short texts. Ask one question. Gradually lengthen texts and add questions

Working in the classroom – with written texts

• Break a long text into paragraphs

• Individual Work:

– Work with a “Stopper”: Give the students 5 minutes to cope alone…gradually expand the time students’ working alone time

• After each paragraph, discuss the main idea and the supporting details: the examples.

• Students ask themselves: What did I read? What did I understand? What is the main idea? How can I say it in my own words?

• Find and highlight the key words in the paragraph. Notice if the key words appear with negation! Make sure the students read the entire paragraph before marking key words and answering the questions

• Vocabulary students don’t know – try to elicit from the context!

Working in the classroom – with written texts Find Markers!

• Become acquainted with the characteristics ,formats and general features of books: title, author, summary, recommendations

• Where can you find what?

– Books - on the spine, back cover, title page;

– Letters: date, salutations, greetings, closure, signature, introduction, body, end

• Recognize markers that supply information about texts • in a book, ‘by’ would signal the author.

– In a letter, ‘Dear’ would signal the person being addressed

– ‘Yours’ or ‘Love’ would signal the sender

– In an email, ‘To’ would signal the person addressed

– ‘From’ would signal the writer or sender

– ‘ subject’ would signal the main idea.

Working in the classroom – with written texts Organizational clues

• Find connectors that signal organization : – first, second, third, finally, therefore, as a result of.

• Find cause and effect words: – for this reason, consequently, on that account, hence, because, made

• Explicitly teach the skill of inference. – Play riddle games and word games

– Use TLC – Activities for Teaching Inference

– Use Pictures – TLC on Inference – Pictures

Writing in the Classroom

• Practice writing opening sentences that use the words from the question

• Encourage guided (structured) and free writing

• Provide opportunities to write and present the students’ writing – in the English corner or on the English site:

Make writing a meaningful activity

Be Proud to Be Published

Presentation Tasks - How to Prepare

• Provide opportunities for writing in every lesson –on the sentence or paragraph level

• Start with simple sentence structure Teach and practice lexical chunks: I can see; There is/are; The … is…the…;

• Teach paragraph starters: In my opinion; I think that; I agree; I don’t agree with…

• Have students write sentences/paragraphs that are meaningful to them

• Suggestion: Use the Bank of Performance Based Tasks from RAMA

Writing Accurately

• Pupils must read the instructions in Hebrew carefully and pay attention to what tense is required.

• Pupils must read the instructions in Hebrew carefully and pay attention to what is being asked of them.

• Share the rubrics from the Meitzav exam with your pupils to enable them to understand how their work is evaluated.

MAKE YOUR STUDENTS PARTNERS!

Writing Accurately

Grade 5

• Check: capital letters at the

beginning and a period at the end of the sentence

• Emphasize simple sentence structure and use “formulas”

• Skim the test for vocabulary: ideas and correct spelling

• A sentence must include a subject and a verb and an object when necessary.

Content / Vocabulary

• comprehensibility

• relevance

Accuracy

• articles

• capitalization

• full stops

• prepositions

• pronouns

• sentence structure

• spelling

• subject-verb agreement

• verb forms

• word order

Assessment Criteria Assessment Criteria

Post Listening/Reading/Writing

• Check answers

• Discuss with your students what was difficult and how they solved the problems.

• Listen to other suggestions for solving the problems

• Students in the class read their sentences out loud

ALWAYS READ THE INSTRUCTIONS

Students usually don’t read instructions! Practice: 1. Underlining the “action

words” (verbs) that tell you what to do.

2. Underlining important additions (write only one idea…)

3. Students write the instructions in their own words.

4. Students tell other students what the instructions are.

Credits

• This presentation is based on

“What can We Learn From Item Analysis – Recommendations for Teachers”

http://cms.education.gov.il/educationcms/units/mazkirut_pedagogit/english/inspectoratesdesk/whatsnew.htm

TLC on Inference:

http://tlc.cet.ac.il/ShowItem.aspx?ItemID=cc091d34-b0c9-4da2-805f-4025e3d203a0&lang=EN

TLC – Inference by pictures

http://tlc.cet.ac.il/ShowItem.aspx?ItemID=19a5b020-9b84-4d70-a48a-f05c33951b0e&lang=EN

Scoring Key for the English Test – Grade 5 2012/B

http://cms.education.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/6FE34B74-6425-4D73-988F-1555CDA20C35/149044/28ENG0125BSOFpnet_mehvan.pdf